The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: confiscation act, free soilers, thunderbolt will keep, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The perennial tension between principle and pragmatism in politics frames this engaging account of two Civil War Era icons. Historian Oakes (Slavery and Freedom) charts the course by which Douglass and Lincoln, initially far apart on the antislavery spectrum, gravitated toward each other. Lincoln began as a moderate who advocated banning slavery in the territories while tolerating it in the South, rejected social equality for blacks and wanted to send freedmen overseas—and wound up abolishing slavery outright and increasingly supporting black voting rights. Conversely, the abolitionist firebrand Douglass moved from an impatient, self-marginalizing moral rectitude to a recognition of compromise, coalition building and incremental goals as necessary steps forward in a democracy. Douglass's views on race were essentially modern; the book is really a study through his eyes of the more complex figure of Lincoln. Oakes lucidly explores how political realities and military necessity influenced Lincoln's tortuous path to emancipation, and asks whether his often bigoted pronouncements represented real conviction or strategic concessions to white racism. As Douglass shifts from denouncing Lincoln's foot-dragging to revering his achievements, Oakes vividly conveys both the immense distance America traveled to arrive at a more enlightened place and the fraught politics that brought it there. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

"A great American tale told with a deft historical eye, painstaking analysis, and a supple clarity of writing.”—Jean Baker “My husband considered you a dear friend,” Mary Todd Lincoln wrote to Frederick Douglass in the weeks after Lincoln’s assassination. The frontier lawyer and the former slave, the cautious politician and the fiery reformer, the President and the most famous black man in America—their lives traced different paths that finally met in the bloody landscape of secession, Civil War, and emancipation. Opponents at first, they gradually became allies, each influenced by and attracted to the other. Their three meetings in the White House signaled a profound shift in the direction of the Civil War, and in the fate of the United States. James Oakes has written a masterful narrative history, bringing two iconic figures to life and shedding new light on the central issues of slavery, race, and equality in Civil War America. .

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (January 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393330656
• ISBN-13: 978-0393330656
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,133 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #40 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( L ) > Lincoln, Abraham
  #52 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Military > United States Civil War
  #64 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > United States > Civil War

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Politician and the Reformer, March 22, 2007

By	Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (Hardcover)

Abraham Lincoln (1809 --1865) and Frederick Douglass (1818 -- 1895)are American heroes with each exemplifying a unique aspect of the American spirit. In his recent study, "The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics" (2007), Professor James Oakes traces the intersecting careers of both men, pointing out their initial differences and how their goals and visions ultimately converged. Oakes is Graduate School Humanities Professor and Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has written extensively on the history of slavery in the Old South.

Oakes reminds the reader of how much Lincoln and Douglass originally shared. Lincoln and Douglass were self-made, self-educated, and ambitious, and each rose to success from humble backgrounds. Douglass, of course, was an escaped slave. Douglass certainly and Lincoln most likely detested slavery from his youngest days. But Lincoln from his young manhood was a consummate politican devoted to compromise, consensus-building, moderation and indirection. Douglass was a reformer who spoke and wrote eloquently and with passion for the abolition of slavery and for equal rights for African Americans.

Much of Oakes's book explores the difficult subject of Lincoln's attitude towards civil rights -- as opposed simply to the ending of slavery -- and of how Lincoln's views developed during the Civil War. Oakes uses Douglass as a foil for Lincoln beginning with the Lincoln -- Stephen Douglas debates in Illinois in 1858. Steven Douglas tried hard to link Lincoln to Frederick Douglass and to abolitionism. He claimed that Lincoln favored equal rights for Negroes and raised the spectre of intermarriage between white women and black men. Portions of Lincoln's responses to Stephen Douglas were almost as distressing, as Lincoln carefully avoided supporting civil equality between the races and stressed instead the evil of slavery and the need to stop its expansion. It is not surprising that Douglass the abolitionist was ambivalent and mistrustful of Lincoln in the early years, doubting his committment to the cause of ending slavery.

Douglass continued to distrust President Lincoln. Douglass found the President too quick to temporize and too slow to act towards freeing the slaves. In widely publicized actions, Lincoln had rebuked two of his generals, Freemont and Hunter, who had tried to take aggressive action to free slaves. Lincoln had acted in order to keep on good terms with the border states whose support he deemed necessary to a successful war effort. But Douglass saw Lincoln's actions as weak and waffling.

Douglass's attitude gradually changed with the Emancipation Proclamation and with three meetings between the two men in 1863, 1864, and 1865. Douglass was won over by the President. Lincoln, for his part, seemed to view Douglass with genuine affection and friendship. Douglass gave masterful orations summarizing Lincoln's accomplishments following Lincoln's assassination, in 1876 at the unveiling of the Emancipation Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C., and throughout the rest of his life. Lincoln had fought slavery with every means at his command, Douglass came to believe, given the difficult political and military situation with which he had to deal.

Douglass' career moved in an opposite direction from that of Lincoln. He began as a reformer and a follower of the abolitionist William Garrison and he initially shared Garrison's contempt for the American political process. Gradually, Douglass found his own voice, and he became convinced the the United States Constitution did not support slavery. He came to conclude that it was possible to work for change through the political process, and this belief eventually allowed a convergence between him and Lincoln. With the conclusion of the Civil War, Douglass became a party man and a stalwart Republican -- perhaps giving up more than he should have of the passion of his early years. While he ultimately saw the failure of Reconstruction, Douglass remained for the rest of his long life firmly within the American political process.

Oakes does an excellent job of comparing and contrasting the work of Lincoln and Douglass. His accounts of the complex events leading to the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation are particuarly lucid. Oakes argues that Lincoln had surreptitiously delivered the death blow to slavery by the end of 1861. As to Douglass, I learned a great deal from Oakes's discussion of his three autobiographies, written in 1845, 1855, and 1881 (editied, 1891) and of how these works document the change of Douglass from reformer to an instance of the American success story. Oakes also describes well and detail a chilling meeting between Douglass and other African American leaders and President Andrew Johnson in which Douglass unsuccessfully tried to persuade Johnson to extend the right to vote to African Americans.

Oakes has written a readable, informed account of the achievements of two great American leaders. The attitudes which they represent -- the politican and the reformer -- and the issues with which they struggled remain with Americans today.

Robin Friedman

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What changed Frederick Douglass' mind, April 23, 2007

By	Jesse Steven Hargrave (Silver City, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (Hardcover)

Author James Oakes tells us this: in 1860 Frederick Douglass wrote of the upcoming presidential election "I cannot support Lincoln." But in 1888, Douglass said he had met no man "possessing a more godlike nature than did Abraham Lincoln." What had happened?

Oakes gives us a quick glance at his hypothesis within the subtitle of his book: the triumph of antislavery politics. As he explains, this doesn't apply to Lincoln. Lincoln was always an anti-slavery politician, although his thinking on how and how fast slavery should be destroyed changed over time. But with regards to the use of politics as the means to abolish slavery, the man whose thinking moved more was Frederick Douglass. And although the two men share the billing in Oakes' title, this is far more a book about Douglass than Lincoln. It is a book about the evolution of the reasoning of Frederick Douglass.

That evolution, as Oakes paints it, began for Douglass from the belief that the issue of slavery transcended politics and the compromises that came with it. Oakes traces how Douglass the reformer began to be drawn into the political arena, alienating the abolitionists who had first supported his career. But still he carried with him that insistence on absolutism. He brooked no delays, no strategic maneuverings. Lincoln and the Republicans were gradualists, and therefore were deemed irresolute and untrustworthy.

After the Civil War began, Douglass found even more reasons for outrage. Lincoln refused to immediately emancipate the slaves. The President even countermanded the Union generals who issued proclamations freeing the slaves in the territories they conquered. Lincoln had not yet issued a retaliation policy against confederates who captured and often executed southern blacks who had joined the Union army. Oakes gives us deft insights into Lincoln's thinking on all these issues. Douglass, who apparently was not himself an acolyte of consistency, bounced back and forth in his electoral attitudes. But he never let up in his pressure on Lincoln nor in his condemnation of the President's lack of strong steps against slave-holding interests.

Then, first in 1863, Lincoln meets with Douglass. About a year later, at Lincoln's request, they meet a second time and Lincoln asks Douglass to draw up a plan to get as many slaves freed under the Emancipation Proclamation as possible. Over that span Douglass' thinking with regards to Lincoln undergoes a dramatic shift. Afterwards, his criticism of Lincoln essentially stops.

Oakes describes these meetings, including a third just after Lincoln's second inaugural address, in as much detail as consistent with the small format of the book. He relies largely on Douglass' own recollections. Oakes also gives us dramatic retellings of other events in Douglass' career that illustrate the development of his thinking, but also the refinement of his skills as a political strategist.

We are still left wondering what exactly was the effect of those meetings with Lincoln. Was Douglass simply overwhelmed, as others were, by the force of Lincoln's understated humaneness and thereby convinced of the President's genuine concern for blacks? Or did Lincoln persuade Douglass that his political methods were the best possible under the evolving circumstances? Or did Lincoln flatter Douglass into acquiescence, especially in enlisting his help during that second meeting?

These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Oakes in no way downplays the significance of these meetings. But I believe he wants us to see that what happened was entirely consistent with the evolution of Douglass' thinking with regards to politics. As a reformer, he saw it his job to always keep the pressure on. But where and how best to apply that pressure --- that changed in his meetings with Lincoln. And, near the end of Douglass' life, when he raised Lincoln to sainthood, he was still putting the pressure on. But he was using Lincoln's reputation to apply that pressure against the backsliding that the post-Reconstruction era had brought. Douglass had found a way to combine the duties of a reformer with a sophisticated instinct for politics.

"The Radical and the Republican" is not a dramatic retelling of events. It is certainly not a co-biography of its two principals. But it does have drama. That drama comes from taking Douglass' thinking seriously and mapping out its development and growing political sophistication. To do this, it uses comparisons with Lincoln's thinking and the interplay of the two men's principles and actions. But it's not by accident that Douglass comes first in the book's title and its cover. There are many books about Lincoln. This is a book about Frederick Douglass.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puts the radical ideologist and the political realist in historical perspective, May 30, 2007

By	Clio - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (Hardcover)

One of the easiest things to do, especially on the web, is to take a highly regarded leader of the past, say, Abraham Lincoln, pull a few of his quotes or actions out of their historical context, and supposedly "prove" how horrible that leader actually was. In contrast, author James Oakes explains Lincoln to us postmoderns the way an historian should - by reminding us of Lincoln's circumstances and explaining Lincoln's overarching purposes. Oakes does this without resorting to making Lincoln a saint. According to Oakes' compellingly-supported evidence, Lincoln refused to compromise two essential commitments - to antislavery and to the American political system. Lincoln would not compromise his antislavery position to get more votes, nor would he compromise his oaths to uphold the Constitution to undermine slavery. This dual commitment of Lincoln's goes very far in helping us understand why Lincoln limited his goal to preventing the spread of slavery before he became president, why he didn't just go ahead and free all the slaves when he became president, why he moved slowly towards emancipation during the war, etc. Furthermore, the author's discussion of Lincoln's overwhelming desire to change the hearts and minds of Americans about slavery instead of merely forcing through political change regardless of wider support was especially useful. As the "Republican" in the title, Lincoln wanted a government that represented the will of the people; therefore, the will of the people needed to be converted before the government could make radical change. The fact that Lincoln helped accomplish this more widespread change is quite a testament to his legacy of leadership.

The "Radical" in the title is another great American, Frederick Douglass. Unlike Lincoln's, Douglass' reputation typically is not in dispute. Most of us love Douglass, and for good reason. Oakes doesn't tarnish Douglass' reputation, but he does help us to understand how Douglass' singular commitment to antislavery/antiracism, as compared to Lincoln's dual commitment explained above, often put Douglass at odds with the political process AND caused Douglass to speak out so vehemently against politicians like Lincoln. From Douglass' perspective, only immediate emancipation and egalitarianism would serve justice. Thus, by necessity, Douglass would oppose and criticize Lincoln - that is, until the two men met.

One of the reviewers below critiques Oakes for supposedly overstating the relationship between the two men. I believe this critique is misplaced because Oakes never claimed to be writing primarily about the interpersonal relationship between the two. Instead, he's writing about the interplay of the radical ideology of one, and the antislavery politics of the other. Also, I think that Oakes analyzes the relationship between Brown and Douglass comprehensively, not simplistically, as a reviewer below seems to believe.

As a person who teaches history at the college level, and as a person who enjoys reading history for fun, I would recommend this book. I intend to make it one of my required texts for my survey American history course, alongside Frederick Douglass' autobiography.